In this tutorial, we’ll explain about protocols and discuss their function in computer networking.
TCP/IP, a fundamental type of computer network protocol, will also be covered in considerable detail.
What is protocol full explanation?
The protocol is a set of rules which are used in digital communication to connect network devices and exchange information between them.
We can understand it like this if two devices want to connect and both devices want to share their data.
Behind the information that is shared is a set of rules that perform this task and these sets of rules are called protocols.
Real-Life Examples of Protocols
A man might leave his house to go to his office, for instance. The figure below shows that there is just one road between a man’s office location with his desired location.
Additionally, there are some set-off rules on this road that must be applied by everyone using it.
We’ll refer to this man as X, who wants to travel from home to the office.
Now X has left his home, he is driving his car on the left side of the road and there are traffic signals in the center of the road arrives.
So, when the light turns red, he stops his car, and when it turns green, he drives it in the direction of his destination. X has successfully arrived at his destination.
Similarly to this, when an X leaves the office to go home, he will follow the same set of rules.
Just our example proves that whenever two devices share data between them, there is some set of rules between them.
Furthermore, both devices obey the same set of rules that allow them to send and receive information by doing so
Application Layer Protocols Explanation
In competitive exams, Application Layer Protocol is extremely vital. If the exam is competitive, the application questions will be framed from the viewpoint of computer networking.
As we know protocol is nothing but a “set of rules”.
The TCP/IP model has different protocols for each layer. Every protocol has a specific task that it is intended to carry out. The following section discusses a few of the most popular application layer protocols.
File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
File Transfer Protocol is the standard TCP/IP protocol that is used for the purpose of transferring files from one computer to another.
For example, if we want to transfer a document file to a remote computer, then we can use this protocol.
Real-Life Applications
Filezilla, Techie
- Data connection is non-persistent
- Control connection is persistent
- Not Inband
- Reliable
- Stateful
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
- The World Wide Web (WWW) uses the HTTP protocol to deliver web pages from a client to a web server.
- Whenever we search for anything in the address bar so it brings that website in front of us.
HTTP Request and Response Interaction
- The World Wide Web (WWW) is a system of Internet servers. Servers serve a request sent by a client. This request is called an HTTP request.
- So, the communication between a server and a client is based on requests and their respective responses.
- Using a web browser when you type a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) Like http://www.w3ipedia.com you are sending a request.
- In its response, you get the contents of the website that may contain text, images, Graph, Stories, Health tips, Wellness, etc.
- These contents are embedded in an HTML (Hypertext Markup Language).
- In this case, your computer works as an HTTP client, whereas the computer serving you a webpage is called an HTTP server or web server as shown in Figure.
Web browsers are used to easily access the World Wide Web (WWW). Client-server architecture describes how web servers and web browsers work together.
A common approach to creating applications is called client-server, which efficiently shares data with any number of other computers (the clients) upon request from servers that are maintained in central places.
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (STMP)
SMTP is a standard protocol to transmit emails.
Examples: – Gmail, yahoo mail, Hotmail
There are two more protocols used with STMP (POP & IMAP), all these protocol work with the help of TCP/IP.
POP
POP, which stands for post office protocol, is a message access protocol that a user can utilize to retrieve email from the server.
The POP protocol works upon TCP/IP protocol and helps the SMTP protocol from end-to-end communication.
IMAP
- IMAP stands for Internet Mail Access Protocol.
- It is also a mailbox which is actually an improved version of POP.
- By Using IMAP the main advantage is we can retrieve our deleted email from the server.
Recommended Tutorial
1:- Computer Network Models Explanation
2:- Modes Of Data Communication